Today I’m hosting my very first guest – the wonderful saga writer, Judith Barrow. Her latest book is just out – A Hundred Tiny Threads. So come and meet the Howarth family!

A Hundred Tiny Threads

Today I’m welcoming Judith Barrow to the blog – my very first guest! It’s lovely to have you here, Judith. I really enjoy the family sagas you write, so my first question is:

What made you decide to write in your genre?

Families fascinate me. We live in such diverse situations and, a lot of the time, tend to take it all for granted. Being a family member can bring the best and the worst out in all of us, I think. So a wealth of human emotions to work with.

What other authors of your genre are you connected/friends with, and do they help you become a better writer in any way?

I recently held a series of interviews with other family saga authors. Through those posts it was lovely getting to know them and the way they work. With some I’d already read their books, others, it was brilliant to discover their novels. I also have met writers, both Indie and traditionally published, through social media over the years and feel I know some of them quite well. My greatest support has come from the group of authors published by Honno. We have a Facebook group where we can chat and ask for help/ information and generally boost moral when it’s needed. And we’ve met up in real life on many occasions. My dearest Honno friend is Thorne Moore who is an invaluable help with the book fair we organise annually; I’d go so far to say it wouldn’t be half the success it is without her.

Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly?

No, I really don’t. It’s one of the things I stress to my adult creative writing classes; they have to feel what they write. If they don’t how can they expect the reader to empathise with their characters? I have laughed out loud with my characters, cried through some of the situations they’ve found themselves in, felt admiration and even envy for the strengths they have dealt with the hard times. And been completely exasperated and cross with some of them.

Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

It’s funny you ask that. Not long ago I was told by another author that all my books were ’Samey’. I was quite incensed for a few moments until it was explained to me that she meant of the same genre. But even if they are all family sagas I still think that, like life in different families, each story needs to be original; both for my own satisfaction and for my readers. And writing style comes into that as well. Just lately I read a book by an author whose past books I’ve devoured. Her latest is written in such a different style I could have sworn it was by a different author. It wasn’t, of course but I wondered how she managed to write in such a diverse way. I’m not sure I could change my voice so drastically.

How do you balance making demands on the reader with taking care of the reader?

Ah, this is our great friend ‘foreshadowing’; I like to drop subtle hints of things to come into the main body of the story. I drive my husband mad by saying who’s done what/ what’s going to happen/ how something will turn out in television dramas. I do try to keep quiet but even then I say triumphantly, “Knew it!” afterwards. There’s satisfaction in being a reader and guessing the action to come. Then again, there’s great satisfaction as an author in leading the reader down the wrong track as well.

Do you want each book to stand-alone or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?

I set off to write Pattern of Shadows as a stand-alone but I knew here was another story about the Howarth family waiting in the wings. And that happened again after Changing Patterns, so Living in the Shadowsemerged. I breathed a sigh of relief when that last book of the trilogy was finished but after a week the two main characters of A Hundred Tiny Threads, the parents of Mary Howarth, the protagonist in the trilogy, stared clamouring. So their story had to be written.

I actually thought I’d finished with them all then. But up popped eight minor characters from the three books mithering and pecking at my head. So I wrote a set of short stories for them in my anthology, Secrets.A couple of them are still buzzing around… hmm!

Would you like to talk about your latest book here?

Thank you. A Hundred Tiny Threads is the prequel to my trilogy. It’s a family saga set between 1911 and 1922 in Lancashire and Ireland during a time of social and political upheaval. So it covers the years of the Suffragettes, the First World War and the Uprising in Ireland with the Black and Tans. The two main characters are Winifred Duffy and Bill Howarth, the people who become the parents of Mary Howarth, the protagonist in the trilogy. As with the trilogy, it’s published by Honno (http://www.honno.co.uk) and has been described as an engaging, emotive novel.

Judith Barrow, originally from Saddleworth, Yorkshire, has lived in Pembrokeshire, Wales, for almost forty years. She has an MA in Creative Writing with the University of Wales Trinity St David’s College, Carmarthen, a BA (Hons) in Literature with the Open University and a Diploma in Drama from Swansea University. She has had short stories, plays, reviews and articles, published throughout the British Isles and has won several poetry competitions. She has completed three children’s books.
She is also a Creative Writing tutor for Pembrokeshire County Council’s Lifelong learning Scheme

11 thoughts on “Today I’m hosting my very first guest – the wonderful saga writer, Judith Barrow. Her latest book is just out – A Hundred Tiny Threads. So come and meet the Howarth family!”

Lovely interview, Judith. I totally agree that writers must “feel” their books as a key element in engaging readers. If we aren’t willing to dig deep and hurt, we curtail the reader’s experience. Good luck with the wonderful line up of books!